How are These Websites Locking Their Font Size?

liunx

Guest
How are these two websites locking their font size (meaning you can't change it with the "Text Size" command in IE):

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://cube.ign.com/">http://cube.ign.com/</a><!-- m -->
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.buy.com/">http://www.buy.com/</a><!-- m -->

I've read that these commands may not work on all browsers, so what happens to the page design when the text is enlarged? Also, how effective are these locking commands? Do they work on most browsers?

Note: I'm not interesting in the ethics of using this technique; I'm not a fan of it myself. I'm just curious to know how they're doing what they're doing.Oh, I should also mention that I'm not even sure they're using CSS to do it, so this may be in the wrong forum. But it seemed like the best bet to me.Right forum, its because they've defined their font sizes in pixels. IE doesn't think pixels are a relative size even though they actually are relative sizes. Big subject so keeping it simple.

IE doesn't resize fonts sized in pixels
Firefox does resize fonts sized in pixels

It is therefore much better to use ems for font sizes and a good practice to set the font size in your css body tag to something like 76% as a base. That way your scaling up and down with text enlarging isn't too out of control.

Hope this was of some help.... :cool:IE doesn't resize any font sized in an absolute size, be it pixels, inches (in), centimeters (cm), or points (pt).It's probably worth mentioning here that, as implied by the other responses, it is a bad thing from a usability standpoint to "fix" the sizes of fonts. For instance, the buy.com example you provided apparently is not interested in business from anyone with aging eyes, as the entries in the browsing by category section would be next to impossible to read for many people, yet it can't be resized into something they could read.I think one could say that pixels are actually not an absolute size though as they do resize in Firefox. Its just IE says they aren't an absolute size.... (IE = temporary demi-god of the internet). By the way, not a linux guy myself, but the new Kill Bill tee shirts with the linux penguin and a sword are pretty cool.

Further to accessiblility and usability the use of pixels for font sizing is just not a good idea in general because not only can't your old dad resize to read it but a great proportion of the population actually have some vision problems and its not a small bunch. If a store say was missing one quarter of its customers because they couldn't get in to buy then they'd be silly not to do something. Still, a lot of designers and developers out there are doing just that! :cool:tag for good infoOriginally posted by toicontien
IE doesn't resize any font sized in an absolute size, be it pixels, inches (in), centimeters (cm), or points (pt).

I haven't learned the possible CSS terminology (specification) for font size yet, but I have specified a pixel size in my tiny external style sheet. I don't like locking sizes on people, so how could I change this? That is, how would I specify the font size?

Let me see if I can paste in what I do have.


body

{
color: #000000;
background-color: #cccccc;
font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;
font-size: 14px;
}


Hmmm. I used 14px assuming it's something like "points," and my own eyesight is lousy, and since it's my site, I thought I'd make a large-ish font size.

Should I say something like

font size: large;

?

Fri, 10 Dec 2004 23:50:10 (PST)Hi Carol
A good idea is to use ems, but with a % in the body tag. This of course like anything is contentious so I say it hesitantly as what I do not what anyone else must do :)

In your body stipulate 76% and what this gives you is a lesser difference between resizing of text, more control, on your website. Then on your H1 and p tags etc use ems like
.98em

A little playing around with that and you should get the idea soon enough. This way IE will allow your users to resize fonts....

Hope that helps... :cool:

Norty Pig Web DevelopmentThanks for the 76% suggestion! I'll try that!

Sat, 11 Dec 2004 00:48:20 (PST)Originally posted by porco
I think one could say that pixels are actually not an absolute size though as they do resize in Firefox.

might I add that px are not an absolute size because firefox says so but as specified by w3 (<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS1#units">http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS1#units</a><!-- m -->). Because of IE though px are not the best option so you have either em or ex with most ppl choosing em.hehe I was hesitant to say it outright without a link to the relevent document... remembered something off alistapart or somewhere about it. story of my life :cool:

Norty Pig Web DevelopmentYou can visit below site which has information about how to lock font size.
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.allmyfaqs.com/faq.pl?Specify_fontsaspcoder">http://www.allmyfaqs.com/faq.pl?Specify_fontsaspcoder</a><!-- m -->, you're not realizing the great irony on that page:
From All My FAQs Wiki: Specify fonts -
* How can I lock the font size on my page so it won't change when the visitors change text size for their browsers?

1. Specify the font-size in "px", or "pt" if you are confident in pixel/point/resolution calculations (Hint: This requires you to set up the client so it can calculate pt correctly - more authors don't have this control). This technique only works in MSIE - other browsers are too good to lock font sizes.

2. Set up [an] FAQ on your site [to] handle complaints about your arrogant assumption that you know better than the visitor what size font he or she prefers... or NEEDS.

3. As the complaints pile up and your reputation as a designer goes down the tubes, spend months in quiet contemplation about things you can control, things you can鎶
 
Back
Top